Lemony Letdowns: Frosted Flakes Macarons

I had a 3 day weekend and decided I’m going to finally christen my Macaron making kit and make my most favourite confection. I had high hopes for this recipe, but as soon as I looked through the oven window I knew how this was going to turn out. I just have to remember that you can’t get good without some bad…I hope I just don’t have too many with my precious macarons.

Assembly
1. Preheat oven to 280°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Weigh your egg whites, almond flour, powdered sugar, granulated sugar and ground Frosted Flakes Cereal on your food scale.
2. In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment add your weighed out egg whites, and sugar beating on medium speed. Beat on medium-high until stiff peaks form. Takes close to 5 minutes. Set aside for a couple minutes.
3. Place the powdered sugar, almond flour and Frosted Flakes into a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine. Place in a sifter or fine sieve and sift until all dry ingredients have passed through. Gently fold in the egg whites to the dry ingredients, mixing only until just combined.
4. Place batter into a large pastry bag with a large round tip attached. Pipe rounds, about ½” apart onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Give a good tap or two of the pan to remove any bubbles.
5. Bake macarons for 22-25 minutes. You’ll see a shell on top with “feet” around the edges. Let cool completely before removing. Once cooled, take an offset spatula to loosen from parchment. Pair the macarons close in size to each other to prepare for filling.
6. To prepare buttercream, beat softened butter and powdered sugar until creamy and smooth. Add honey and 1/4 cup crushed Frosted Flakes to the frosting, beating until combined. Place buttercream into a medium pastry bag with a large round tip attached and pipe a dollop of frosting on the center of a macaron and top with a second macaron. Serve room temperature. Store any remaining macarons in the refrigerator.

Tips
• Please note that all ovens are very different. These tips and instructions are a reflection of the picky palates kitchen and her oven.
• I had to use close to 5 extra large egg yolks to get the 95g. So make sure you have enough eggs on hand.

My thoughts
I had high hopes for my first attempt at macaron for some reason. I keep reading how hard these are to make, but then I come across recipes that seem so simple and have less ingredients, tricks and techniques. My macarons were flat lifeless circles and looked nothing like the photo. They tasted good; maybe a little too sweet for me but next time I will be trying another recipe until I get these right. I opted to not make the frosted flakes buttercream when I saw how my macarons looked. Why waste a stick of butter and more ingredients. I used jam instead to see what it should have looked like if it came out the way I hoped.

I used the macaron mat for my first batch and they stayed more circular but the bottoms didn’t finish cooking. However, when I free formed my second batch they didn’t stay in circles but the bottoms were cooked. I will need to work on this for sure. This is also a great time for me to start practicing my piping skills, since I haven’t used a piping bag before either. I obviously have some work to do.

I hope to have a perfect set of macarons made by Macaron Day on March 20th 2014. Wish me luck.